“The gods can’t come out. The blight doesn’t allow it,” Xenozar muttered.

“What is the blight?” Twain asked casually, glancing at Xenozar.

“If we knew, we could probably stop it,” Spar replied.

“Rot,” Xenozar replied, ignoring Spar.

“Most people say it’s negative magic, right?” Twain said, nodding at Spar as though he were talking to him, not the Dark King in his head.

“I don’t know. They don’t teach horses that.”

Xenozar remained silent. Almost contemplative, he floated alongside Twain. All at once, he turned over his shoulder and stared in the direction of the human castle. “I’m closer now. I can think clearly.”

“Maybe they should. Teach horses things, I mean. Who knows when there’ll be another Spar?” Twain said, thumping Spar on the shoulder.

Spar grimaced. “All that learning looks like… effort, and work. Spare me.”

“Do you know? I created your race. Your race, and the demons, and the undead… a few other failures. I wanted so badly to have someone else like me, someone who could survive in the blighted lands outside.”

Twain raised his eyebrows. Moon elves were created by the Dark King? How powerful is Xenozar, if he can create a whole… no, three whole races? The dream of being picked up by Xenozar as a baby replayed in his mind, and he rubbed his brows. That wasn’t me, then, but… my original ancestor? Damn. Doesn’t that basically make Xenozar the Moon Goddess? Moon God? But no, I met her, and she’s…

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He shook his head. This is a mess. I don’t know what to think. Maybe he’s just lying.

After a second, he frowned. If he’s telling the truth, it didn’t really work, did it. I’m resistant to blight and all, but look at me now.

Xenozar sighed. “It did…once. I could split off a part of myself. Or help birth a new being, exactly like me, born from the blight itself. But I couldn’t create a whole race. And the other beings… never lasted long.”

Huh, he can read my thoughts—well, he is in my head. A second later, Twain blinked. Wait, is that… Zalazar?

Xenozar nodded. “What was I doing wrong? I kept replaying it in my head. Why couldn’t I create life? I was born from pure magic, the same as the gods.”

You were?

“When the gods carved out a piece of magic to form the Mage-Emperor, the world was no longer young. The primordial pure magic could not regenerate. The hole remained. Rot crawled in and filled up the hole, and from that rot, I was born.”

Why did they create the Mage-Emperor? I thought it was to combat the Dark King.

“A prophet-god said that a great darkness would come. In the gods’ hubris, they never imagined that their own actions could create that darkness.” Xenozar laughed. He stretched a hand to the sky. “After I cover this world in blight… what do you think, Twain? Are the gods next?”

“No,” Twain said.

“Huh?” Spar asked.

Twain shook his head. “N-never mind. Look, we’re almost there.”

He pointed blindly, but what he said was true. The cave gaped ahead, a massive, dark hole in the mountainside. Even this close, he saw no sign of Felix or Reihann.

Spar paused. He stretched, cracking his neck. White light burst from where he stood, and a unicorn took the man’s place.

Twain put a hand on the sword he’d collected from the camp, but didn’t draw it. I can’t beat Reihann. My only hope is to talk to Felix, that I guessed right, and he isn’t being held against his will.

Up to the lip of the cave. Silent depths stared back at him, black as pitch. A faint dripping echoed up to his ears, but no sounds of life. If not for the bloodstains and soot marks around the cave’s mouth, he might have mistaken it for an ordinary cave. Reihann is definitely here. And where she is, Felix is surely close. Hopefully close enough to hear.

He took a deep breath. “Felix!”